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As I sit in front of my computer as I have been doing every day for at least 10 minutes for the past 14 years, the first thing I do is to log on to Gmail, Facebook, Outlook, and El País (Spanish newspaper) in this same order. It is fascinating to see how back in 1998, when I opened my first email account, the Internet was a novelty for me, and I was afraid to click on the mouse every time I had to “send” or “register” or “refresh.” I am far from being an Internet savvy today, but I now find myself having a routine online experience that has become automatic, thoughtless, and, often, useless.

In a similar way, we humans love entertaining ourselves by moving back and forth between our Past and Future lives, seldom stopping by our Present for a simple self-check to say, “Hi! How are YOU doing?” The human brain is easily programmed to automate thought processes and every day actions to make energy expenditure more efficient. The downside of this is that we also tend to be less aware of our present lives and make use of our ability to weed out the unimportant from the important if we are constantly living under this automatic pilot. It is no surprise, then, that we do not stop to think about our present lives until we are actually forced to improvise an emergency stop on the road when a major life-changing event crosses our path.

Think of the Past and the Future as two security airbags. We are in the Present, the Now, This Moment, standing right in the middle between the starting line and end line of our lives. Whenever we feed our Past and Future with our thoughts, emotions, and actions, we are blowing these security airbags so energetically, and they are growing big so easily, that they almost seem to squeeze us, leaving no room for us to actually feel comfortable with who we are and what we are doing right now, in the Present. Sounds familiar? Why not invert that energy to stop blowing the airbags, to stop the automatic pilot, even if it is only for 5 minutes each day?

The simplest way to do this is to just mindfully close your eyes and take a deep breath or two, and to remain quiet for a few subsequent breaths. It does not matter where you are or what you are doing. If you are driving, you could do the same with your eyes open. The key is to do it with your full attention and awareness. Practice makes a habit, and I firmly believe that this is a positive one with many benefits as side-effects, like being able to lower your stress levels or simply being appreciative of your life. Sounds like a plan?

Lately, I have thinking about the ease and frequency of spending our everyday lives anchored in our past or future, and of how we rarely get to do the same in the present. Contrary to what our common sense may tell us, living in the present is harder than it seems. It is much easier for us to think of what was, in yesterday, in a minute ago; in a year’s time, in tomorrow, or in what we will be doing in a while. For a strange reason, it seems like we are not willing to be physically, mentally, and emotionally experiencing the now. This lack of alignment is, for the most part, the reason for which our minds are scattered at work, we do not relax when it is time to rest, or we do not really enjoy the journey itself when we are out travelling.

I recently learned an exercise that does not take more than a couple of minutes. It is a series of steps to help us “return to the present,” explained in a very simple manner by writer Anthony de Mello. One of the most accessible forms for all of us to connect with reality is to do so through our five senses; and there is no better way for this than starting with focusing our attention to our own bodies. Slowly, we perceive the way in which our shoulders brush against our clothes. Calmly, we do the same with our hips and turn to our hands. What are they touching? In what position are they right now? We then focus our attention in the way our buttocks exert force against our torso. Are they tense or relaxed? Finally, we feel our feet and perceive how they are brushing against the socks, the shoes, and the ground. We are done. We may repeat the process several times slowly, starting over from the shoulders downwards.

This exercise lets us turn to ourselves, live in the present, pay the necessary amount of attention that every action deserves, and become more deliberate in our day-to-day lives. We may keep our eyes closed or open; the exercise is not about meditating in front of a candle light, sitting in a lotus position. Rather, it is a routine that we can practice as many times as we want while we read, watch TV, walk in the city, or drive around. It is about being aware of what we are doing at every moment: to feel the touch of the objects that we are manipulating, listen to the sounds that reach us, or stop for a moment to observe the things that enter our visual field. This practice has been wonderful for me at night to quiet my mind down before going to sleep. I get sleepy and get to completely disconnect during the time I need to rest in order to recharge my batteries and welcome a new day.

Should someone ask me about the things that I feel passionate about, I would not know what to say. In fact, I would immediately ask the same question back, and this person would most likely realize that his answer is equally unclear: “Well, I do like several things, such as music, photography, horror films… But I do not feel passionate about them, no.” In my case, whenever I talk to videogame, computer, cooking, or samba “geeks” or enthusiasts, I tend to feel jealous, and ask myself how come I am not a geek at something, too. I imagine how there may be different levels of geekiness, but at the end it is a form of passion aimed at something specific. For example, Chopin was a piano freak during the Romanticism era, and the amount of enthusiasm that Mendel manifested in the cultivation of pea plants led him to discover the laws of genetic heredity. Beyond the importance of their creations or discoveries for human history, though, they were able to experience life through their passions, which, in this case, were music and nature. Back to our days, I wonder if at least 1% of the world population would commit to understand the world it lives in through the development or encouragement of that which it feels passionate about.

According to the coach and journalist, Sergio Fernández, excellence in any form of activity is the result of a minimum amount of dedication of 10,000 hours to the repetition of the same. This amount would equal to almost 417 days or a little over a year of uninterrupted action. In a certain way, such discovery has allowed me to quantify the possibility of becoming excellent in something, a characteristic that as a rule of thumb is considered to be subjective. In turn, the 10,000-hour framework is the result of a real and tangible manifestation of our enthusiasm, passion, or geekiness, it does not matter how we call it, in the name of perseverance and dedication. My approach from now onwards is no longer to discover which activities strike me as passionate, but rather to what types of things would I be willing to dedicate a minimum of 10,000 hours of my time (and it would not be to be sitting in front of the TV). Better still, would I be willing to pay money for that amount of time to dedicate it to something that truly inspires, fulfills, and satisfies me? I can timidly think of some options, but I will keep them to myself.

I am aware of the fact that the vast majority of people let their lives go by hardly surviving due to a lack of education, money, time, or resources; it almost feels like any excuse is valid. However, if we take into account how 10,000 hours barely make up for the 2% of the approximately 613,200 hours that compose a life-span of 70 years, perhaps it may be time to take our lives in a more effective manner and with a higher sense of direction, with the ability to invest our time to matters that are essentially gratifying and enriching, everyone in his own unique way, mentally, physically, emotionally and/or spiritually.

“The years were probably calculated by the seasonal cycles, while the month was measured by the moon, perhaps from new moon to new moon. The (concepts of) hours, minutes, and seconds were unknown.” This is how the notes by the writer Colleen McCullough end about her novel, The Song of Troy, whose story develops at around the year 1200 B.C. It just so happened that the day I read those lines was turning out to be rather wearisome, and it was not due to a tight agenda, quite the opposite. By not having almost any desire to do anything, I was feeling how time increasingly diluted and the clock would mark the hours every 120 minutes. On one side, it was nice to have the sense that I had all the time in the world at my disposal to invest it in anything. However, due to the laziness and passiveness that I was manifesting, I could not really enjoy the day from the feeling of guilt that I felt by not “taking advantage” of the time. It was not until I slipped into bed that I began to think of all the things that I could have done and did not do. For a few seconds, I felt the urge to get out of bed and get down to business, but as soon as I saw the clock pointing at 01:00, I said to myself, “But Taiki, where are you going at this time…? You lost your chance during the day, now you are going to sleep no matter what.”

I then thought about how the concept of time could be something cultural despite its scientific basis. Time and space have been topics of great philosophers and scientists, so I decided not to go on that direction, but rather, I focused on more practical and subjective examples on what time entailed for us: there is no greater feeling of tediousness than that when we are engaging in a task we regard as boring, and to be constantly watching the time. We feel as if 15 minutes have passed, when in reality they are only 2 and-a-half minutes… Nonetheless, the opposite seems to occur when we are immersed in an activity where all of our senses are focused in one place, for the sense of 10 minutes may easily be 2 real hours of concentration. This is something that we often refer to as fluidity or inspiration.

Time is also a factor that, in practice, functions in a very different manner between, for example, New York and Seville. In the city of skyscrapers, people seem to be engrossed with their commitments, very attentive to what they have to do every half hour. There is an impressive efficiency at work and social interaction is reduced to its minimum to maximize individual pragmatism. Therefore, the amount of information that is handled and the decisions that are taken in one working day is overwhelming. People appear to be on the run all the time to later complain about how New Yorkers are the loneliest people in a city of 8 million inhabitants. I then think of such warm and open cities like Seville, where the half-hour to 45-minute breakfast at 11:00 is almost a collective ritual; lunch time tends to be 2 hours long (as opposed to the 15 to 30 minutes in the US); and meetings can last more than 3 hours to discuss the first point in the agenda and not reach a concrete decision on the same day. Nonetheless, it is very difficult not to get into the dynamics of comradeship and an intense social life within the companies, thus, spending most part of the time during the week among colleagues rather than with family or friends. What about productivity? No worries. Tomorrow we will talk about it during the meeting after breakfast. And if it is not possible because it will already be Thursday, we will wait until next week.

I want to believe that I am not one of those people who identify 100 percent with either of these extremes, but I do recognize the fact that I let my work environment influence me a lot. As a freelance worker, though, I am currently my own boss and employee simultaneously, and I can reach an edge of schizophrenia with my voices going back and forth, often arguing to decide whether I should continue working in front of the computer or take an indefinite break until I want to concentrate again.

After rambling through these examples, I quietly reassured mi desire to continue in a very clear and defined direction that would allow me to be aware of the present to have a desirable, solid, and tangible future. One of my fears is to end my days wondering around aimlessly, like the image that got stuck in my brain, of men with lost gazes, strolling along s highway hid up in the mountains in the region of Ketama in Morocco. I watched them for a few minutes as we passed by the region by car on our way to our next destination. These men, though, they had been walking aimlessly for entire hours, days, and years…

Last weekend I found myself meditating over the concept of perseverance. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, to persevere in something means to persist in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of counterinfluences, opposition, or discouragement. Ways to persist in an undertaking? There are a variety of them, of course. To be constant in something implies, a priori, the existence of an objective to accomplish. For example, there are people who can be perseverant in buying the lottery and easily spend 300 Euros each month by playing with the same number, in case they win. (Objective: To become rich overnight in order to live better.) Others can be perseverant in keeping their jobs at all cost, even when bad humor and a lot of stress are all they get in return because, in the end, they have a secured salary. (Objective: To lead a financially stable life.) And yet a few others may think that housing today is not affordable for the young, and persevere in extending their lives living in their parents’ house because, instead of paying a rent, it is better to wait until they have a mortgage to pay. (Objective: To buy a house before living in a rented place.)

Nevertheless, I have a feeling that such examples are only contributing to a single, one-dimensional aspect with regards to perseverance, for we are only counting on the prospects of things based on the time that we are willing to invest to carry out a repetitive action (to buy the lottery every month, to go to work as a routine, or to save money little by little to gather the necessary amount for the down payment of a house). In Morning Glory, an American comedy by Roger Michell, I had the pleasant surprise of discovering a different perspective on the issue. In the movie, a young TV producer is hired to revitalize a morning magazine whose cancellation is fast approaching. With an academic record that is not her best letter of introduction and an excessive passion for her work that is interpreted as pure naïveté by her superiors and work team, what, then, is it that this woman does in order to achieve personal and collective success?

The answer is in the combination of three qualities that each and every one of us has at our disposal to develop: perseverance, flexibility, and creativity. Each component contributes to the empowerment and growth of this triangle, thus creating a more dynamic and multidimensional relationship to achieve our goals in the short-, mid-, or long- term. Within perseverance lies the importance of flexibility, which allows us to have a greater tolerance against frustration when things do not come out as expected. Likewise, it is our creativity that endows our purpose with life, for it is important to create new tools, paths, methods, perspectives, and ways of communicating with the outside world when we notice that something is blocking our way, and to not die in the attempt to achieve what we really want for ourselves and/or others.

Do I consider myself as someone who is perseverant? Flexible? Creative? In what aspects of my life am I putting these qualities into practice? Making very clear what it is that we want to achieve at different points in our lives in order to apply the triangle of perseverance, flexibility, and creativity is something that all of us should put into practice. Age, cultural environment, money, or educational background are factors that are simply irrelevant; the necessary ingredients for personal growth are already within our human nature.

Even though it no longer happens to me often, I occasionally surprise myself to see my plate empty and recognize that I have eaten everything that I had in front of me. Of course, it did not use to be like this when I was little. I remember perfectly when I was five years old in pre-school, my entire class gathered around a large table in the dining hall at lunch time, with our teacher sitting at the end of the same. At my school, we were frequently served meat cut into dices and served with its gravy. I experienced these days as my worst nightmare, for it was a general rule that we had to eat everything that we were served. Our teacher was there to make sure that we met the norm, even if it meant losing the entire hour-long break before going back to class in the afternoon. We were not allowed to talk during lunch, let alone play with our food, for this would lead to a verbal warning from the teacher and a notice would be sent home to notify our parents about our misdemeanor.

Despite the strict rules that were imposed on us, we would take advantage of the occasion to let our creativity fly by means of obscure strategies to get rid of the meat without eating it. I began by spreading the surface of the meat mixed with some rice around the plate to make it seem that I had eaten “enough”, or I would pretend that I got a stomach ache and curl on my seat. I later went a little further by craftily grabbing some pieces of meat to throw them on the floor. However, I was not aware of the fact that half of the class was doing the same thing, and at the end of the lunch, the floor beneath the table was a dumpster. That strategy was soon discovered, and the reprimand we received was colossal. I would not give up, though. I would rather risk it with crafty strategies, even if I received verbal warnings, than experience gag reflexes every time I tried swallowing a piece of meat. I then began to resort to the wonderful creation of paper napkins. I decided to take the pieces, wrap them, and put them in my pants’ pockets. Due to the fact that at that age our teacher were more vigilant of the things we did, it proved to be pretty hard to find an ideal moment to throw the napkins away in the trash, and on many occasions, I would spend the rest of the day with the meat damping my pockets. “Taiki, why do you smell like meat…?” my classmates used to ask several hours after finishing eating.

Something changed throughout the years and I can now eat meat in general, as well as each and every one of the vegetables that are available in the market. Just before I started eating things that I could not even look at in the past, I would ask myself, “Have I really tried the cauliflower before being conscious of its taste? If so many people eat the same meat that I do, there must be something tasty in it, right?” And I realized that action, the desire to try things out regardless of the result, took me to rediscover certain foods that I now enjoy eating. I want to think that something similar occurs with our beliefs and the form in which we act throughout our lives. I often hear the phrase, “I have always been like this,” or “Why should I change now when I have done things this way all my life?” Many people are not aware of the fact that age is irrelevant. Look at the American Nola Ochs, who at 95 years old, she has earned her bachelor’s degree in history and she now is pursuing her master’s. Or what about George Clooney, who did not become world-famous until he was 33 years old, after spending 16 years in the background within the audiovisual industry while selling men’s suits and cutting cigars? Either conscious or unconsciously, we have the capacity to make decisions, get out of our comfort zone, discovering new sensations, and explore new territories in our lives. There is nothing more real in this life than the phrase, “we only live once.” Why, then, live life with so many dislikes, aversions, or fears? It simply is not worth it.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to watch “About Elly,” a film by Iranian director A. Farhadi. I think it was the first time I ever saw a film set in a local Muslim culture that did not feature Western policy or terrorist attack issues in the plot, which is something that struck as not only intriguing, but refreshing as well.

The two-hour long film takes place almost entirely at a run-down beach house in northern Iran. A group of friends from Tehran in their late twenties rents the place for a few days to celebrate Ahmad’s return from Germany and hook him up with Elly, a girl that no one knew except for Sepideh, the leading voice in the group who invites her to travel with them. Despite the fact that they were “modern” and “contemporary,” I observed clear differences between the two sexes. The men were dressed in very casual, modern street wear, whereas the women always wore their loosely arranged scarf over their heads with long-sleeve shirts that covered their wrists, and pants that always hid their ankles. Needless to say, none of them had their scarves down at any point during the entire movie. It was not, however, their attire that caught my attention. Rather, it was the natural attitude, the savoir faire, with which each gender executed its role. For once, wearing a scarf was not an issue, men relaxing after dinner while women cleaned up was normal, and assuming the paternalistic role over women was the status quo. At first, the whole scene seemed anachronistic, devoid of any common sense to me. I say this because I would have done so many things differently had I been in their situation. I soon realized, though, that I was observing their behavior from the perspective of a highly liberal individual and I thought how, except for the language, people’s actions and emotions were no different to what I can see in Spain or in South America, at least for my parents’ generation and beyond.

The main focus of the film was the female versus male honor in romantic relationships and the individual and collective repercussions of the same. Clearly, women seemed to be at a disadvantage. Unfaithful thoughts, even when they were justified by a relationship that had long been worn out, constituted a reason for dishonor. The important difference was that the “cheated” man had the option to move on with his life, whereas the woman seemed to have been forced to suffer the not so appealing choices of either submission or death. Interestingly, the dramatic tone of Elly’s disappearance acquired a wider and fiercer dimension as soon as it was discovered that the man who was claiming to see her was not her brother, but her fiancé. To him, the group suddenly became Elly’s accomplice to try to escape from her relationship with him, and everyone seemed to admit their fault, even when most of them had never met the girl prior to the trip.

I wonder if should the same story had taken place in the U.S. or Spain, would it have had the same impact among the audience. Honestly, I do not think so. On one side, Farhadi, the director, succeeds in transporting us spectators to be another member of the group staying in the house, showing us the implicit interpersonal norms that unite the group within a very specific sociocultural context. On the other side, though, we are presented with a conflict in the plot that could be regarded as trivial to the newer generations in the West, often forgetting, for example, that up until a few decades ago, Spanish women were not allowed to leave the country without their fathers’ or husbands’ consent, that domestic violence and passion crimes are still social ills in many so called “first-world” countries, and that many people in Japan think that suicide is necessary to save one’s honor.

When I think of the meaning of a cultural melting pot, the first country that comes to mind is the United States. This sociopolitical and economic giant par excellence is primarily composed by four groups: descendants of African slaves and European immigrants, Asians, and Latinos. (Unfortunately, the Native American population that originally inhabited the North American continent was suddenly decimated by the European landing.) Starting with the European settlers in the 16th century who brought along slaves from the African Continent, towards the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, the country experienced an authentic pull effect that contributed to the massive diversification of its inhabitants. Throughout a little more than its 200 years of history, the United States has learnt, one way or the other, to live in a state of continuous learning with respect to the integration, adaptation, and enrichment of the cultures that have been coexisting since then, along with the most recent incorporations into the ethnic scene.

Coming back to the 21st century, this time on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the sociocultural scene in Spain begins to resemble that of the United States at the beginning of the last century: the big cities, such as Madrid and Barcelona, have increasingly been inviting a greater number of immigrants from both within and outside of Spain. The migratory phenomenon of Spanish people and foreigners that concentrate in these cities has been especially evident since 2000 when the streets, public transportation, schools, and the food and construction industries began to show a diversity of faces, languages, accents, and customs. For example, today in Madrid there is a celebration of a Bollywood Festival, featuring dances and Indian film screenings, or the week of the Ramadan, which is celebrated by setting up a night market and entertainment spaces to bring closer the gastronomy of some of the Muslim countries with the highest representation in the city, as well as to facilitate intercultural exchanges. Moreover, for a few consecutive years now, and coinciding with the week of Hispanic Day (Columbus Day), Latin American groups and associations that are present in the Spanish capital go out on the streets in a Brazilian carnival style. For this occasion, they proudly perform their melodies, costumes, and dances that demonstrate the great diversity of the Latin American people.

The Spanish society is currently in a point of no return, a moment in which globalization and people’s facility for mobility can only contribute towards a multicultural development of the country, beyond the regional governments that have composed it historically. In fact, the coexistence with other cultures from abroad will cease to be something incidental to become an obligation of each and every one of us. And it will be so not only in major cities like Madrid or Barcelona, but the phenomenon will very soon be appreciated in other disparate places, such as Cáceres, Murcia, or Lugo. According to Liz Alderman, editor of The International Herald Tribune, the financial crisis that we are experiencing in Europe and the currency war that is taking place globally, are a difficulty for some while posing an opportunity for others. Such is the case for China, a country that is carrying out a grand-scale economic strategy in Europe in which it has begun to invest its capital in infrastructure projects like roads and harbors of peripheral European countries. Simultaneously, it is also taking over part of the accumulated debt of countries such as Greece and maybe Ireland. Depending on the agreements reached with each country, the permanent presence of the Chinese will be more important in the European societies, giving way to a cultural coexistence that will need, according to what has been experienced in the United States, a continuous social reeducation.

Meanwhile, another social phenomenon that we are experiencing in Spain is the human capital flight, or the so called “brain drain.” In an article published by Sergio Muñoz in Infoempleo.com last November, the author comments the results of a study carried out by the Adecco consulting firm, where it is shown how there has been a 9.2% increase in the number of Spanish people who have emigrated between 2008 and 2010. The profile of these emigrants is of a young adult between the ages of 25 and 35, with no family responsibilities, and who, generally, has a highly qualified training under the belt. Traditionally, Spain has experienced brain drain in the bio-sanitary sector, but the lack of employment opportunities today are forcing an increasing number of architects, engineers, and computer programmers to leave the country. Similar to the cases of immigrants in Spain in the early 2000, most of them coming from South American countries, who filled jobs in the food industry sector that many Spanish people left in search for more qualified positions, part of the future job openings of these qualified jobs will be filled by foreigners again due to a shortage in the Spanish labor force.

One way or another, our lives are being altered in the social, educational, working, and professional spheres by incorporating the multicultural concept as an inextricable component of our daily lives. In what ways do we then want to make a good use of it? My suggestion is that we do it from the perspective of learning to achieve a more effective and equitable communication. We are facing cultural concepts and practices unknown to us, and the fact is that we can neither step back nor push them away to distance ourselves. There still is the need for one or two more generations to develop before we can really observe the effect of the sociocultural synergy that Spain will experience, but the process has already been activated. Therefore, we have the individual responsibility to decide in which manner we want and ought to adapt ourselves to the sociocultural demands that the global society appoints, without giving up the satisfaction of sharing and enjoying those differences that make each one of us unique.

When I initially considered having a client niche in the business of professional coaching, I first thought of “immigrants,” for I felt that I could very well relate to the needs of others like myself. I have lived in various countries whose cultures have greatly differed from one another, I have experienced adaptation processes in new cultures and academic or professional environments, and I have also felt the intrinsic need to build my life´s path in a country other than Colombia or Japan. The idea of coaching immigrants was heading in the right direction, but it still felt very generic, as if I were going to specialize in men or in thirty-one-year olds for the mere reason of being a thirty-one-year old male myself. I wanted more clarity and preciseness.

In an effort to find more specific targets to coach, I thought of several other terms related to the word “immigrant” to help me carry out a brainstorming exercise. Words such as, “migrant,” “emigrant,” or “expatriate” came to mind, but somehow they felt elusive, as if they did not want to be identified or pinned down for future reference. It was very interesting, though, to find different interpretations of the same terms, leading me to conclude how these are words heavily charged with sociopolitical connotations. When I think of “expatriates,” the thought of a male or female executive comes to mind. This person lives abroad for 2-5 years after accepting an offer to work overseas; a contract that often comes with considerable financial support for housing, children’s education, health insurance, moving expenses, and generous bonuses. Multinationals’ mid- and high-rank employees and diplomats are the first jobs that fall under this category. In fact, many of the search results that populate the Internet after googling “expats” are dedicated to communities whose profile fit the abovementioned description.

Nonetheless, in an opinion article by a former Moroccan diplomat in Spain, I read about the distinction between an “expatriate” and an “immigrant.” He felt that both terms were associated to the socioeconomic status of migrants. If a person were socially and economically stable or successful, he or she was considered an expatriate. Expatriates, most of them from wealthy Western societies, moved overseas temporarily not for survival, but rather for a richer professional and personal experience. According to the writer, these people enjoyed being part of a privileged social and economic network both in their countries of origin and host countries. On the contrary, if this person were socially or economically vulnerable, and hence moved to another country out of necessity, he or she became an immigrant with an open return ticket. These groups of people came from very weak or inexistent socioeconomic networks that forced them to migrate, often illegally, to countries where life standards were considered to be better. The writer denounced such differences as well as the fact that the term “expatriate” had been granted an elitist connotation.

Yet another interpretation to this term came from someone I met during a business lunch. When we spoke afterwards, he manifested his interest in my work because he had understood I specialized in coaching refugees and individuals who sought asylum in other countries. For him, the term “expatriate” referred to someone who had been divested of his or her country of origin; people who were denied the right to live in their own countries. Once again, I encountered a geopolitical interpretation of the term, and I began to sense that maybe it was not the ideal word to market myself.

If “emigrant” refers to anyone who leaves his or her own country or region to live elsewhere, “immigrant” refers to anyone who enters a different nation or region other than his or her own for an indefinite time period, and “expatriate” refers to anyone who lives abroad for a limited time within a strong socioeconomic network, who do I want as my target? During the same conversation I had with the person I met at the business lunch, I casually mentioned the term “global nomad,” and it caught his attention. His reaction left me thinking about it for a while. A global nomad (or third culture kid) is really a descriptive word for individuals who have spent a significant amount of their developmental years in countries different from their parents’. It is actually a very specific term, but the literal sense of a “global nomad” seems in accord to the social globalization that we are experiencing. In an era where communication and mobility are facilitated and even encouraged, more and more people become nomads in search of economic, social, professional, personal, or cultural enrichment opportunities that transcend geographic boundaries.

Thus, in the broadest sense of the word, the term “global nomad” could include emigrants, immigrants, expatriates, and globe trotters alike. The more I think about it, the better it sounds. I have not yet decided whether I am going to market my coaching services through this concept, but I have a good feeling about it.